This blog provides delicious,traditional, vegetarian, South Indian Recipes from my mother Chitra Amma's kitchen. There are few 'world recipes' as well!
Thanks to Shravan, Pranav, Akash, Tara, Guggs, Shankari, Adu and Appa Ramachandran for the photos!

FoodBuzz

Friday, July 3, 2009

A dark night, poor lighting, potholes, a false step, all got her leg in a cast! Chitra Amma was away from the kitchen for few weeks. She’s back in action now and it’s certainly good to get back to blogging – so here is her next recipe! ~ Dibs

My friend’s daughter had a craving for Tomato Tokku. She remembered the tokku which she had tasted long back at her guardian’s place when she was working away from her home. It is a custom to fulfill all the cravings of an expectant mother so that she delivers a healthy happy baby. Tomato tokkuis new to me, but any way I decided to give it a try. My friend’s daughter relished the tokku very much and here I am happy to share my recipe with all of you.

INGREDIENTS

Finely chopped tomatoes - 6 (In case you are particular, you can immerse the tomatoes in boiling hot water for few minutes and remove the skin, before chopping them)

Til Oil (Indian Sesame Oil) – 1 ladle (about 6 -8 tablespoons)

Asafoetida – ¼ tsp

Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Salt – 1½ tsp

Sugar or jaggery - ½ tsp

Red chilly powder - 2 tsp (this gives a nice hot tokku. You can reduce the amount if you want it milder)

4. When the tomato becomes a pulp, add chilly powder, and cook without the lid.

5. Keep stirring now and then. Cook until the oil separates out from the pulp. This takes about 25 - 30 minutes.

6. Now, dry roast fenugreek seeds on a tava, and grind or pound into a fine powder.

7. Mix the fenugreek powder into the tokku. This step fills the kitchen with a lovely aroma!

8. Tokku is now ready. Store in a clean dry glass bottle.

Properly cooked tokku will stay for many days at room temperature – just like any other Indian pickle. If the oil is insufficient, or any moisture remains, the tokku will get spoiled. If you are unsure about your tokku, you can safely store it in the refrigerator, and use within a week.

This simple and zingy tokku livens up any meal. You can take it with rice and ghee, or along with chapattis, dosai, idli, or along with curd rice.

I prepared the tokku and it came out very tasty, though I added extra menthye in the end. Thanks a ton for the recipe. My wife and I always crave for something chatpata to eat with main dish. This also adds as a main dish when we are exhausted.

Hi i am very new to ur blog..immediately tried ur tomato tokku and kothamali thokku..both turned out so well and we had it with idli for dinner..it was really yummy..thank u so much for giving such wonderful recipes..will try ur other recipes too

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Hello

Welcome to Chitra Amma's Kitchen.

I am Dibs. I am a born Foodie. I love to cook; love to eat; love to feed folks who appreciate good food. Blogging provides me a great way of documenting my mother, Chitra’s recipes, as a ready reference irrespective which time zone I live in. Amma honestly makes the best food I've ever had, and somehow, the anecdotes she tells us, make the dishes taste all the better.Most posts here are written by my mother Chitra. It’s her recipes, along with related reminiscences of people, places and anecdotes. She writes, I post!What started for a lark, has now become a serious hobby, drawing in participation from the whole family. My father, S.R. Ramachandran has started clicking away every dish made at home! Aunts, cousins, siblings, contribute to photos, and ask for recipes.We try to illustrate implements such as utensils, grinding stones and so on from the ‘pre-electric-mixer’ days wherever possible. We hope this will make an interesting read for future generations, on how food was cooked in earlier times!The site is still in its infancy, and slowly evolving, as our skills improve! We invite your comments, ideas, and questions, and will attempt answering them.

Thank you for your visit, and we hope you enjoy your stay at Chitra Amma’s Kitchen.